Pastor Tom's Community

"When conflicting viewpoints arise in a circle of trust, we arrive at a critical moment. Now we can easily slip back into business as usual … trying to talk each other into, or out of, some opinion. Now we may forget why we are here: … to help each person listen to his or her…

"I believe in God as I believe the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." -CS Lewis In I Kings 19, Elijah is on the run, tired, discouraged, depressed, afraid of dying and wishing to die. He has crashed after a great success and does…

The first great controversy in the early church was over making sure all people were treated fairly and equitably. This led to the first appointment of official servants whose job was to administer ministry (service) and this, in turn, led to the first martyrdom, Stephen. It was a season of firsts. The last become first…

Kathleen Peterson, https://www.kathleenpetersonart.com Filled with Awe “And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, ‘What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’” -Mark 4:41 It was when Jesus brought calm that the disciplines found the space to experience the fear. What they had been experiencing before that…

I've fallen down the rabbit hole into a dystopian "wonderland" of bizarre relativism. Can someone pinch me back into reality or has the whole world set aside any perspective on truth and compassion? "Truth is whatever supports my world view?" Is that it? All else is bias? The audacity of me saying that everything that…

CHAP. VII. The Passion of St. Alban and his companions, who at that time shed their blood for our Lord. Bede’s account from The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (1. 7) of the martyrdom of Alban, probably under the Diocletian persecutions in the year 304. Alban was the first British Christian martyr. At that time suffered…

It is true that we have been informed and inspired by some folks who did some horrible things, things from which we may have benefited, things that destroyed other people and their societies. Our thought processes must be balanced if we are going to learn from history and make a better history for those who…

When we learn to love freedom, the freedom of one is the freedom of all. We all share in its blessings when received and in its deprivation when it is withheld.